The undertaking to transform life completely into something of positive value, suddenly and directly to advance to complete affirmation of life, is associated with the desire for power. So far as this is simply a desire to abandon an irresolute and narrow mode of thought, false humiliation and self-belittlement, and mere accommodation to circumstances in tasks where the beginning is difficult and calls for great effort, we may frankly admit its justification. But the matter is not so simple as it is represented in this train of thought. Ultimately no spiritual movement which would win mankind can give up its claim to a final affirmation of life. Even the most completely pessimistic systems, systems of absolute negation--as, for example, the original Buddhism--could not conquer wider areas without making that negative milder and transforming it into an affirmative. But the question is whether, after all that humanity has experienced and suffered, a quick and immediate affirmation is possible; whether the way to a final affirmation does not lead rather through an energetic negation. So long as the restriction which life felt seemed to come from outside only, and not to reach the inner recesses of the soul, as the prevailing mode of thought in Antiquity represented the case to be, the decisive rejection of all suffering, the proud armouring of the soul against all pain, could be accepted as the crown of all virtues. In face, however, of actual experience, Antiquity could not continue to hold such a conviction. For good or for evil, it was compelled to regard suffering as something more important and to occupy itself more with it, and, until Christianity opened up new paths, it fell into the danger of losing all vital energy. Whatever position one may take up with regard to the dogma and the tendencies of Christianity, the fact cannot be struck out of history that it has laid bare infinite perplexities in the soul of man in regard to his relation to the world, and at the same time has taken up suffering into the centre of life, not to perpetuate it, but to rise above it by the revealing of a world of spirit and of love. This has not made life easier, but more difficult; yet at the same time it has made it greater, deeper, and more inwardly determined. Every scheme of life which light-heartedly professes to be able to lead us quickly over suffering and to cast it off proves itself to be intolerably superficial, if not frivolous. Superficiality easily triumphs over men and becomes their first opinion; men seem to welcome first every way of thinking which makes life comfortable and presents no demands of any sort. But the problems of our existence, and the longing for genuine and not merely illusory happiness, remain, and in face of the seriousness of these problems it soon proves to be fleeting and vain to try to find satisfaction in that which is simply comfortable.